A new class-action lawsuit accuses Spotify of allowing billions of fraudulent Drake streams generated by bots between 2022 and 2025, allegedly inflating his royalties at the expense of other artists. "Spotify pays streaming royalties using a 'pro-rata' model based on an artist's market share," notes Consequence. "Each month, revenue from… Read More »
Concertina226 shares a report from The Register: [A massive power outage in April left tens of millions across Spain, Portugal, and parts of France without electricity for hours due to cascading grid failures, exposing how fragile and interconnected Europe's energy infrastructure is. The incident, though not a cyberattack, reignited concerns about… Read More »
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: After a turbulent weekend of updates and clarifications, AMD has published an entire web page to assuage user backlash and reaffirm its commitment to continued support for its RDNA 1 and RDNA 2-based drives, following a spate of confusion surrounding its recent decision to put Radeon RX 5000… Read More »
In its largest rollout yet, Waymo said it will launch its driverless robotaxi service to Las Vegas, San Diego, and Detroit in 2026. The Alphabet unit will also debut new Zeekr-built vehicles developed with Geely to complement its existing Jaguar I-PACE fleet. Reuters reports: The new Zeekr model, developed with Chinese automaker Geely, are… Read More »
Coca-Cola has doubled down on AI-generated holiday ads despite widespread criticism of last year's uncanny results. This year the beverage company is replacing human actors with oddly animated animals in a visually inconsistent campaign. The Verge reports: There's no consistent style, switching between attempted realism and a bug-eyed toony look,… Read More »
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: You may be disappointed if you go looking for Google's open Gemma AI model in AI Studio today. Google announced late on Friday that it was pulling Gemma from the platform, but it was vague about the reasoning. The abrupt change appears to be tied to a letter from Sen. Marsha Blackburn… Read More »
A long-simmering battle over who controls credit scoring in America has erupted into open warfare. Fair Isaac, whose FICO score is used in about 90% of consumer-lending decisions in the U.S., announced it will double the price of its mortgage credit score to $10 next year. The company also said it will bypass the three credit-reporting firms that… Read More »